MI Chapter 7

This chapter emphasises MI and the classroom environment or the classroom ecology, as the text terms it. It argues that the classroom needs to be structured in a way that is compatible with all the different MI's and learning styles. The chapter provides various starter questions for each MI to get educators thinking, and then proceeds to discuss different MI centers that act as catalysts for MI thinking. The text even offers a diagram that outlines how MI centers could be established in the classroom. Lastly, the chapters inquires about choices concerning the stations ans whether or not students should have options about going where they like.

All of us thought that again, tailoring the classroom to the various MI's via center and workstations is a good idea, though some of has had reservations about how this might be implemented in a high school setting.
Teachers in a high school, especially a large high school don't necessarily have the same room, or might share a room with another teacher. Because of that, it might be rather difficult to adapt the MI stations. Also, there is often a limited amount of room to be able to do things like setting up stations or centers. Time is a factor too. All of us are starting to think that what the text presents is an optimum scenario that we could implement if we had the time and the resources. If not, do the best we can, and if it really is our best there shouldn't be a problem.
The questions concerning the different MI's in the classroom was an example of something that can be done fairly easily though. The point about how linguistics permeates everything done is especially important. It is unlikely that a curriculum rich in other material would have to focus on linguistics as much since it is almost a prerequisite for every other type of learning in one for or another.
Another point was in musical intelligence, and we all agreed that varying out voices to produce something other than monotone is absolutely essential to keep students interactive. Everyone hates a droning voice, ourselves included. I know that I personally try and work on that during class, and I have gotten positive feedback from the students.
Lastly we all thought a lot about the activity centers and how we might use them in our classrooms in the future, despite the possibly difficulties we may find in implementing them. Personally, I like puppet theatres. Perhaps its a throwback to my younger days when myself and my cousins would put on puppet shows, but i love puppet theatres. I'm sure I could even integrate it into the classroom, possibly even a high school classroom, though it might be difficult.
Spacial and Naturalist MI's also came up amongst ourselves, notably, we all remembered and example of both of those MI's from our own schooling. Gerbils or guinea pigs or maybe even ant farms can be quite interesting even at higher levels, though steps would have to be taken to ensure that the animals wouldn't come to harm. The spacial centers were always some of the more enjoyable and oftentimes large numbers of students would want to use the station at once. We decided that of all our centers we might include in the classroom, a spatial center was an absolute must.